As you noted, marriage without kids is definitely easy mode. If you ever want to try hard mode: 1) add a kid or two, 2) keep traveling, and 3) homeschool or worldschool.

Wondering if you have read Sex at Dawn or the Unbearable Lightness of Being. Two of my favorite relationship books.

Best,
Jimmy

To be honest, PDF links are all over the internet, but I felt it would be unethical downloading any of them. I want to pay you for the book you’ve written, so is there a way you can send me a payment link and then send me a PDF?

Yeah, it’s a fair question and it’s actually very hard for me to find the root of it. On one hand I do believe we’ll be married forever, but on the other hand it would feel very strange to send a huge amount of money to my wife for no reason.

Maybe it’s that our earning has been so separate that it “feels” like it belongs to an individual vs a unit, in the same way if we order at dinner it would be weird if I just started eating her food.

I’ve really been thinking a lot about this since you left your comment and I feel like it’s one of very few things where I can’t come up with a good answer, even to myself. My aversion to it seems to come from enjoying managing money without feeling like I’m risking someone else’s money (my wife is a bit more conservative with her money) and spending without feeling like I’m making a decision for someone else. I think my wife feels the same from the conversations we’ve had on it.

This isn’t a criticism, just an observation. I’m not good at discussing or negotiating these things, and might be missing something.

I think a key to happiness is focusing on helping others instead of focusing primarily on yourself. I think married couples without kids can easily get caught up in the trap of just thinking about themselves. Having kids just unintentionally and forcibly ends up taking the focus off of yourself. You seem to accomplish this through your blog, seminars and videos.

Hey Phoebe! I actually think that it’s almost impossible to get married while traveling. I got extremely lucky and happened to meet a woman during a period where I was at home, and she was used to long distance relationships so it didn’t seem too strange to her. If marriage is a priority I would honestly stay in one place that would have likely candidates and focus on marriage… and then start traveling again either together or separately.

I really didn’t care about marriage and was surprised how much I enjoyed it, but I don’t think everyone needs to get married. If you don’t really care, you may as well keep traveling take your chances.

You’re right! I’m definitely playing on easy mode with no kids. That said I do see a lot of kid-free couples have way more issues than they probably should.

Hey Nancy,

I definitely don’t think traditional gender roles are necessary and most relationships probably have some mix of them. I get your point that you feel more responsible for some things as a woman, too. I guess maybe I mentioned it because it seems these days couples are very focused on everything being exactly 50/50, but specialization works and biological differences seem to often make traditional gender roles a natural fit in many cases.